Chapter 149: (The War) (1/2)

Dorno'ot had been woken up early by exciting news. Well, one part exciting, many parts worrying. A Terran probe had been discovered and captured by the Executor Military. As one of the Most High Executor Scientist Caste he had, of course, been notified immediately.

On the shuttle ride to the primary research facility on the planet he had looked over what had happened.

Apparently the Terran stealth technology wasn't quite as good as they thought and the probe had been leaking gravitic imprints. Three warships had slowly moved up on it in full stealth, visually examining it before getting close.

It had been five massive torpedoes, the kind that would be fired by a dreadnaught. Ten feet wide, a hundred and twenty feet long, cylindrical with a rounded front. They were configured in an odd way, one in the center that was slightly larger at fifteen feet wide and a hundred and fifty feet long, then using tractor beams (where the gravitic energy leak was coming from) to keep the other four a perfect distance from one another. The angle they were traversing showed that they'd passed nowhere near anywhere important, instead passing close to the residential planet where the science caste's families lived.

When the Executor ships moved in to capture the torpedoes they had all seperated and attempted to flee to jumpspace, but the larger one's jump core had malfunctioned, causing a resonance failure in the other four's drives. They had all been reduced to tumbling end over end in an ever-expanding cloud of energetic particles, dead objects who, with the failure of the jumpcores, no longer had power sources. It was obvious that the four missiles would arc away from the larger one, all with copies of the data the largest one had obviously gathered, normally making it so that no less than five ships would have to chase it down or destroy it to prevent the Terrans from getting data on the system. The Executor ships had captured all of them, and on orders from the System Most High, had taken them to the primary research facility.

The chance to examine Terran technology was too big of a lure to resist.

So far there was no power readings except for some residual charges left over from the failed jump drives. Dorno'ot agreed that they had lacked the proper standoff distance from one another when they fired their jumpdrives off that the larger jumpcore had destroyed the other one's jumpdrives. That showed that the Terrans did not quite have the mastery of jumpspace that so many reports had insisted upon.

When he landed Dorno'ot hurried to the main lab where the torpedoes had been taken. The capture of Terran technology was a momentous event, so the System Most Highs and the Council Most Highs within the system had all gathered to watch as the Lanaktallan scientists, the best and brightest military researchers in the system, would pry the secrets of Terran technology from the probes.

After all, to gentle a species the specie's technology had to be understood.

Dorno'ot put on his suit, full of diagnostic equipment, tools, and environmentally sealed to protect from gasses, radiation, bioweapons, or even lasers and light kinetic weapons. Almost trembling with excitement he entered the main laboratory.

There were over fifty other Lanaktallan gathered up. Four to each of the torpedoes examining the damaged and torn jumpdrives at the rear of each probe. All four of them were black metal, an alloy that was well known for its durability, strength, conduction, and other properties. The Lanaktallan had discovered the alloy nearly seventy-five million years ago, but it was determined that discovering how to work the alloy, which hardened almost immediately if the heat lowered or it was exposed to gas or vacuum, would require too much resources when other materials existed that were easier to work and required less resources to create.

Each of the probes had something different written on them.

FREE CANDY INSIDE was on what had been labelled ”Object One”

DON'T WARBORGS OPEN INSIDE was written on the largest, which was labeled ”Object Prime”

I AM NOT A TROJAN HORSE! was on ”Object Two”

EVERY CLICK A WINNER! was on ”Object Three”

MYSTERY BOX OF WONDER! was on ”Object Four”

”The jumpdrives are fairly primitive,” one of the scientists said as Dorno'ot moved up and looked down at the probe. ”The reports of Terrans using other forms of faster than light travel may be accurate as their jumpdrive technology is barely sufficient to get above five times the speed of light on the lower jumpspace bands.”

”Hmm,” he pointed at Object One. ”Are you sure the Terran lexicon is correct? Why would the probe contain candy for no charge?”

”We are unsure.”

He pointed at Object Two. ”Are you sure that translation is correct?”

One of the scientists examining the probe looked up and made a gesture of assent. ”Yes, Most High, we checked it repeatedly.”

”These stencils make no sense,” Dorno'ot said, shaking his head.

”Perhaps they are of cultural significance?” another scientist suggested. He went back to examining the side of the probe where there was a gash in the side, the edges twisted outward, from where the jumpcore had detonated.

”We've discovered crude latches inside that can be opened with electromagnets,” one of the scientists said. ”They are not using that alloy over the latches, but instead have plasteel covers.”

Dorno'ot nodded, trotting around all five work stations, staring at each of them. Without the black alloy the entire system of probes were slightly innovative but did not contain any technology to be alarmed about.

”The locks are encoded but a simple electromagnetic can override the encoding and open the latch,” another scientist said. He checked again. ”It looks like undoing the latched allow the entire forward section to be removed.”

”Remove it,” Dorno'ot ordered.

He watched as the technicians attached electromagnets to the latch points and then applied power. All of the covers clicked and popped off, making the researchers and technicians clatter back making noises of distress.

Inside the largest one were the massive Terran black cyborgs, all laying on their stomachs, their heads lifted up so they could stare at dead display screens, their hands holding onto control sticks, and their feet on pedals attached to a gear toothed wheel that had a chain that went down into the probe.

The others contained black cubes that were connected to nothing. After a moment the extra probes shivered into black dust that slowly dissolved into mist leaving behind the cubes. The mist tattered and vanished, sucked into the environmental control systems.

For a long moment no Lanaktallan moved.

Dorno'ot moved forward and tapped one of the warborgs with a suited finger, making a dull thumping noise. After a moment the others moved forward. They all began examining the warborgs.

”No signs of power supplies. No life signs,” one technician said.

”Because they appear to be a solid mass,” one scientist scoffed.

”Be careful. These have, without exception, come back to life when power was applied to the chassis. These 'full conversion cybernetic organisms' are known to be well armed, heavily armored, and extremely capable combatants with many redundant systems,” one scientist said.

”Yes, sire,” one of the technicians said. He attempted to lift one arm, grunted for a bit, and gave up. He made a disgusted noise and stepped back, shaking his hands. ”It's heavy.”

”Why were they in the probe's internal systems?” one technician asked.

”Are they supposed to be pedaling it? That's now how you power something as technical as these probes,” another technician said.